‘Scalebound’ Cancellation: Was ‘ReCore’ Not Selling Up To Microsoft’s Expectations The Reason The Xbox One Exclusive Was Canceled? [Opinion]

Highly-anticipated Microsoft Xbox One video game Scalebound was recently announced to be canceled. However, is the reason for its cancellation linked to ReCore, another highly-anticipated game, not delivering up to expectations.

According to a written article by Polygon, it reports that Microsoft announced the cancellation of the dragon-riding, action-packed exclusive developed by PlatinumGames. A spokesperson representing Microsoft provided a statement on said cancellation.

“After careful deliberation, Microsoft Studios has come to the decision to end production for Scalebound. We’re working hard to deliver an amazing lineup of games to our fans this year, including Halo Wars 2,Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2, Sea of Thieves and other great experiences.“

Microsoft announcing the cancellation of Scalebound confirms numerous reports from other news outlets. Kotaku was the first to bring up that Scalebound was “in trouble and may be cancelled” citing multiple unnamed sources. And just before Microsoft announced Scalebound‘s cancellation, Eurogamer reported from multiple sources that Microsoft and PlatinumGames hae “parted ways” and the latter had stopped working on the project before the end of 2016.

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Needless to say, many Xbox One gamers were saddened by the news. PlatinumGames tried to utilize more damage control on the cancellation of Scalebound. Kenichi Sato, the chief executive of the studio, himself provided a statement on the matter saying that on behalf on PlatinumGames, he was “very disappointed things ended up this way, especially since we know many of our fans were looking forward to this game as much as we were.”

However, is it possible that one of the major reasons for Scalebound‘s cancellation is that it Microsoft thought it would not deliver? Despite all the hype and coverage, Scalebound is still a brand new IP, one created by a Japanese developer. Pertaining to Xbox One titles, the same goes for ReCore.

For those who do not know, ReCore is the latest Xbox One exclusive to release on the system. One of its primary developers is Comcept who are known for developing Soul Sacrifice and Mighty No. 9. Anyways, when ReCore released, not many people knew about it because it wasn’t marketed well. Not only that, it had numerous glitches and bugs, simple ones that could have been easily fixed. Finally, one of the biggest issues is the absence of one of the primary elements of the game, Tank the T8-NK companion robot.

Generally, the total amount of money put into a game is about half development and production and the other half advertising. It is possible that ReCore was just getting way too expensive to the point it was better for Microsoft to push an “incomplete product” out at a cheaper price. It is even possible that the lack of ReCore having any promotion is centered on all that money going into development and production in which they still had issues with. Ultimately, this resulted in ReCore having dismal sales when compared to Microsoft’s expectations.

It all probably comes down to Japanese developers trying to develop a game on a system that is generally exclusive to Western markets. Xbox is one of the worst-selling systems when it comes to the East, especially in Japan. So why would a company even bother developing for such a system?

That reality most likely caught up with Scalebound. It is a huge project taken on by both Microsoft and PlatinumGames but by a developer trying to develop a game to appeal more so to the west over the east. That does sound bad, but it does make some sliver of sense more so than Microsoft “running out of money” (unless an allocated amount of money is put aside of games, no more, no less).

[Featured Image by Microsoft/PlatinumGames]